The wind whipped wet strands of hair around her face, and she stuck her tongue out, tasting the water’s pure sweetness. It wasn’t acid rain falling all around her . . . it was water. Water! Good old H20. Dihydrogen Monoxide. She wanted to sob.
Her relief was so intense and palpable, her joy so complete. And the taste! It was so cool and clean against her tongue. A long strand of brown hair slapped against her cheek, the tip flopping into her mouth, and she sucked on it. Hard.
She’d had nothing to drink but recirculated water since she left Earth. ‘Purified water,’ it was called on the Jupiter, having passed through three different purification systems before it was dispensed back to the crew. But there was no avoiding the knowledge that it was grey water and, even, black water. Piss, sweat. Even the shower water from when people cleaned themselves. That knowledge alone tainted the Jupiter’s hydration supply for Marcie.
But this?
Every single drop that landed on her face, that found its way into her mouth, was pure and delectable and clean. It hadn’t been through a hundred bodies a hundred times. No. Every drop was hers, and she absolutely loved it.
She was floating gently, and the rain was barely a drizzle. Breaking through an embankment of clouds, she could see it: the surface. The sight made her heart stop so painfully in her chest that she thought she would die. Everywhere, as far as she could see, was a vibrant green, mottled only here or there by the harsh brown outcropping of rocks, boulders, or even the face of a cliff. And then there, near enough that she felt as if she could reach out a hand and touch it, was the wide, glistening reflection of the sky. A lake.
She laughed again, feeling ecstatic with joy.
Those moments before she’d pressed the eject button, she’d been terrified. And she’d been so full of rage. At Tyler. The captain. Hell, even at Mark, for leaving her alone for so many years. But all those feelings were gone now. In their place grew relief and joy. And something else that she couldn’t quite name. but it spread through her, filling her with an elation she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
She reached a hand behind her back, feeling the pack secure between her shoulder blades. Yes, the manuals for testing the water and soil and air were there. It was all still there. And Tyler had assured her before she climbed into the vessel to depart that there were no life forms on the planet. His observation crew had scanned and scanned and scanned again, checking for any movement or anything that resembled life hostile or otherwise, and they’d come up with nothing. It was just Marcie, floating through the air she could breathe, water still soaking her hair. Down to a planet that was vibrant and green with life. That was growing.
They’d done it. They’d found somewhere for humanity to live.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, Marcie, she chastised in her mind, trying to rein in her happiness. She did still have the field test kits, and there was still much to be done. After she tested the water and the soil and the air, she still had to find her way back to the pod. Back to the messaging system that would allow her to contact the Jupiter and send in her results. In fact, it was on the pod where she had to find the equipment to perform the last test—the radiation test.
Tyler had said that they’d already checked the planet’s atmosphere and that the ozone layer was intact, but that didn’t mean that the surface wasn’t teeming with radiation. Though the closer she got to the surface and the better she could see the plant life springing forth from it, the less Marcie thought radiation would be a problem.
It was starting to get dark, the ruby red sun in the sky creeping close to the horizon. All that time aboard the Jupiter, she’d thought there hadn’t been a sun. But she’d been too bitter. Too isolated, keeping herself confined to her cabin or the kitchens. Avoiding the conversations of the crew members, ignoring the little snippets she’d overheard. She’d had no clue where in the universe they were.
But there was a sun. And it was starting to set.
Though she knew she was the only life form on the planet, she did not like the idea of being caught alone in the dark. Especially not having no knowledge of the landscape or the typography of this place. Even if there were no hostile life forms on the planet, that didn’t mean that the plants she would encounter or interact with wouldn’t harm her in some way. They could be covered in thorns or weep poisonous sap, she realized, narrowing her eyes in an attempt to better assess the terrain. For all she knew, the entire planet was teeming in flora that was poisonous to her kind. To humans.
Marcie shivered at the thought and pulled on the strings of the parachute, guiding it to the edge of the lake. That would be a good place to start. It was one of the only bodies of water she saw readily at hand, and it was definitely the closest. She would do her water testing there. And quickly too.
She looked around and made a mental note of where the pod had landed, scanning the area between the lake and the pod for landmarks she could use to navigate once she was on the surface. Captain Giles had said they would give her approximately thirty-six hours to complete her mission.
Blowing her bangs out of her eyes, Marcie glanced over at the timer on her watch. 34.5 hours. That was all she had. She had to do the tests, get back to the pod, hope the communications equipment worked, and send a message to the Jupiter. All in 34.5 hours.
She could do it. She knew she could. She’d come this far. She’d survived breaking through the atmosphere of this planet, and with any luck she would survive this landing.
Gently pulling on the parachute’s cables, Marcie guided herself down to the surface. But then a stiff wind caught the fabric of the parachute, jerking her to the right. Pulling and tugging her too far out. Her heart slammed in her chest. The wind picked up, blowing her hair into her eyes. She tried to blow the hair from her face, exasperated and terrified as the fabric snapped angrily above her.
When she could see clearly again, Marcie’s mouth went dry and her stomach turned. She would land in the lake, if she maintained her current trajectory.
She pulled on the cords of the ‘chute, desperately trying to guide the thing back to some edge of the massive body of water. Any edge. But the wind struck her again, and suddenly, she was falling, hurtling towards the rippling sheet of water below.
Her wild eyes searched overhead. The parachute had doubled in on itself, the fabric twisting and tangling in the cords.
I’ll drown if I hit the water like this, she realized with a panic.
She fumbled with the clips on her chest and detached herself from the parachute. Like a lead ball, she fell.
Taking one final deep breath, she straightened her legs and broke the surface of the water.
6
Briar
“Thorns!” Briar veered his course slightly, plunging down the incline that stopped abruptly at the shores of the lake. He saw the intruder dropping through the air like a stone, the red expanse of its clothing billowing out around it like crimson clouds blown in a storm. As the creature fell, though, the garment drifted away, tangled and snapping in its descent.
A coarse patch of pebbles marred his path, and his feet slipped on the loose stones, sending him sliding down the remaining portion of the incline on his backside. He dug his heels into the rocky terrain to buffer his momentum. For a moment, he considered sending his vines out to blunt his descent, but he promptly decided against it. He couldn’t risk damaging his internal anatomical structures.
Finally, he skidded to a stop.
Glancing up, his chest began to thrum. There was no sign of the intruder, but a great, spreading mass of ripples grew in the lake a stone’s throw from the bank.
On his feet in an instant, Briar didn’t give the scenario more than a moment’s consideration. Untying his pouch and tossing it to the ground, he dove into the water.
Slipping into the deceptively serene waters was like diving into the harrowing memories of his childhood. The way the silvery bubbles had erupted from Moss’s nose as the creatures pulled him into the lake’s depth. And the
n the murky water had been red with blood.
Briar shook his head, his chest burning as he struggled to displace the memory from his mind. He had to focus. The ultimate fate for the intruder may involve death, but he wouldn’t let it be this one. Not at the hands of them.
He dove deeper, displacing more of the water with every powerful, synchronous movement of his arms. The light was dimmer here, and Briar squinted to get a better view. Still, he could barely see further than an arm’s length away.
The water grew black as pitch, and Briar’s body demanded air. Sunlight. Soil. A cascade of small bumps erupted across his body. One of the creatures was near. He logically knew the passing shadow overhead was a passing beast, and on a cellular, primal level, his body sensed the creature’s presence as well.
He focused his bioluminescence into the tips of his fingers, using them as a torch as he dove further. The glow from his hands did little to illuminate the darkness of the waters, and Briar began to lose hope.
Just as his resolve was crumbling, when he was moments away from succumbing to the demands of his body, he saw it. The intruder. But it wasn’t a man sinking to the bottom of the lake.
It was a woman.
He assumed it was a woman, at least. The bones of the face were fine and sharp, and a mass of inky black hair billowed out as the aquatic beast tugged her still further down, to place her in its lair. For what unsavory purposes, Briar could only guess.
He narrowed his arms, streamlining his body and wiggling it like a fish. His heart thrummed in his chest, and his vision was blackening at the edges. A painful throbbing sensation was crowding his mind, making his gaze pulsate. But he was close now . . . so close.
He stretched out a hand and grabbed the woman by the wrist.
Her eyes flashed open, widening in shock as a rush of bubbles escaped her lips. His bioluminescence reflected in her surprised amber gaze, and she began thrashing. Pulling away from him, and the creature, too. But Briar was strong, and he kept his grip on her firm.
Suddenly, the intruder’s foot lashed out, landing a blow to the soft, fleshy cranium of the beast. It released its hold on her ankle, and before Briar knew what was happening, the woman was surging up toward the shimmering light.
He met her pace and then eclipsed it, blind fear making his muscles quiver. Not only were he and the newcomer trespassing in the realm of the beasts . . . they’d attacked one.
I was a damned fool to chase her down here, thought Briar bitterly as he arced and thrusted his body upward, his swimming disjointed and awkward because of his hold on the woman. She was of slight build but oddly dense. Soon, the creature’s pheromones will leach into the water, bringing the rest of its kind here. For us.
Vines slithered beneath the surface of his skin, and he longed to answer their call. Fear made his cheeks flush. He could taste it on the back of his tongue, thick and acrid like bile.
Air! his pounding head screamed. I need air!
A quick glance back at the woman revealed that her entire body had gone limp. He was dragging her to the surface of the water. Literally. And she was so unbearably heavy . . .
Her garments, Briar realized with a start. The woman’s garments are water-logged and weighing her down. And then another thought occurred to him as well. A plan.
Relying on his natural buoyancy to keep them both from plummeting down into the deep, Briar worked quickly. The first thing to go was the strange pack the woman had strapped to her back. They drifted up slightly as the heavy bag sank in the water like a misshapen stone. Next came depriving the woman of her gray suit, a feat only accomplished after finding the damn fasteners for the thing. A single track of interlocking metallic teeth that ran from her neck, between her breasts, and down to her groin.
He pulled the mechanism slowly, abashed at having to see her unclothed. But fear was a powerful motivator in that moment. He could hear the plants in the mud far below, their muffled screams as creatures surged over them. Snapping their stems. Displacing their seed pods.
They’re coming.
Briar peeled the garment from the woman’s body and looped his arm around her waist, kicking his feet towards the shimmering crimson light high above. He forced his bioluminescence to disperse, and the soft blue light he’d been using to guide him darkened.
The woman’s garments floated gently down in the murky water, slower than her pack had, but downward all the same. And then Briar heard it—a gurgling roar, followed by the high-pitched snapping of beaks as the beasts found the decoy and began to tear it to shreds.
He craned his head up, kicking for the surface with all he was worth. The crimson light was darkening.
Night was falling, and so was Briar’s strength.
Disregarding his previous concerns, Briar burst through the barrier between the realm of monsters and the realm of the Verda, sending his vines shooting out to grab at the first thing they could reach on the bank. They landed on the thick, knobby trunk of an ancient tree, coiling and tightening around the deeply furrowed bark. They pulled Briar and the woman forward quickly. But not quickly enough.
Something slithered around his ankle like an eel, feeling the shape of him.
He let his body go limp, but his vines still pulled him to the safety of the shore. If any beasts were toying with the woman’s body, Briar had no way of knowing it. To move any part of his external body now would be to coax the creature into latching onto him. And he couldn’t have that.
Whatever was exploring his body began to creep up the outside of his thigh toward his waist. If it gets hold of me there, thought Briar hollowly, there’ll be no fighting it. I’ll die. Like Moss.
Briar thrust more vines from the stoma below his elbow. And then, wrapping the thick, woody lianas around his wrist, he gripped the vines and screamed.
The vibrations carried into the water as he’d intended, momentarily stunning the creature. But a moment was all that he needed.
Wrapping his legs around the woman, Briar lifted his free arm and sent his remaining vines shooting out to anchor on the tree’s mighty trunk. Then, he called the vines back to him.
Entangled as the vines were around one another and the branches of the tree, the force of attempting to retract the plants sent Briar and the woman jerking to skim along the surface of the water, their path making furious waves as they raced to the bank of the lake.
A wretched, ethereal scream pierced the twilight air, but Briar didn’t look back. Couldn’t dare to see what one of the ugly creatures looked like on the surface world. Especially not one so close and bent on his destruction.
But no lack of seeing could keep the reality of the beast’s pursuit from his awareness.
Briar could feel the slick and slippery appendages of the beast lashing out to flick at his thighs, his shoulders. He focused all his will on keeping his legs locked around the woman’s unconscious body and the vines still surging back into his flesh. The speed and the friction with which the plants entered his body made the small holes beneath his elbows burn, and for a moment he thought some of the vines were weakening to the point of breaking.
His backside skittered against soft mud, and suddenly he was on his belly on the bank, his legs still gripping the intruder.
Pressing his face against the chill, damp dirt, Briar breathed a sigh of relief. But the sensation didn’t last long. He felt something tugging against his legs.
It was the intruder.
Thinking the woman had awoken, Briar reached down and grabbed both of her wrists, pinning them against her sides. Her eyes remained closed, and her mouth was slack. But still her body jerked back towards the water.
In the fading light, Briar’s eyes traced down the woman’s body to her ankles. Her skin was dark in the purple glow of twilight, but something thick and pale coiled around her leg.
Briar’s body went on full alert. Glancing up across the water, he locked eyes with the beast, and his blood ran cold. Instead of looking like the squid creatures from the Elder’s stor
ies, the beast looked . . . like Moss.
Moss’s vibrant green eyes. Moss’s dimpled chin and high cheekbones. Even the leather hide of its skull was a bland and muted gray, like Moss’s hair had been.
The beast’s face contorted, and it let out an eerie whine.
Seizing a sharp rock from the bank of the lake, Briar raised his hand high and brought it down on the creature’s appendage. Thick, black goo oozed out of the wound, shining and bubbling silver and violet in the failing light.
Like the air bubbles from Moss’s mouth, as they drug him away, Briar’s mind screamed.
He brought the rock down again and again, yelling over the creature’s screams to block the sounds from his heart and mind. To block Moss’s memory from twisting his vines into a knot.
The pale appendage went slack and stopped moving.
Briar fell into silence just in time to hear a soft plop as the creature sank back into the dark waters. He fell to work tending to the intruder then, forcing all thoughts of Moss from his mind.
Wiping the bit of black ooze marring his hands into the thick water plants growing at the edge of the lake, Briar wondered how to revive the woman. Now that they were out of danger, he was relieved to see that she’d had additional garments on under the large, bulky mess he’d stripped from her and used as decoy for the aquatic beasts. But even in the scarce light of the setting sun, he could tell that her chest was not rising and falling.
She was not breathing.
He moved to her side, intent on pressing his palms to her chest to revive her. But he stopped.
What if her kind was so very different from his own? What if pressing on her chest cavity caused her bodily systems to stop functioning? He narrowed his eyes at her, trying to assess her anatomy. What if he inadvertently killed her while trying to save her?
A cool breeze ruffled the curls of his hair, and he made a choice.
Briar lowered his lips to hers, intent on breathing life back into her still body.
Blooming Desire: An Extraordinary Spring Romance Collection Page 3